In Hindsight
by Starr Bryte
Summary: Most would kill for a chance like this. To start over. To correct certain mistakes made in ones mispent youth. Yet his only regret was his reason for being here. In the end he wouldn't change a thing. Well..maybe one thing. Please, don't feed the Tribbles


**Dear Reader,**

**Last night I went to see the new Star Trek movie and all I can say is this... WOW... **

**With most of the movies I've seen so far this year (outside of Watchmen) I've been kind of 'meh'... But this... This was true to the essence of Star Trek because it once again created another Time-Line. How many does that make it now? Anyway.**

**Once again this is my catharsis from an emotional upheaval.**

**EDIT**

**I am rather embarrassed about this... I give my most heart-felt apologies...**

**TO TREKKIE'S WHO MAY WANT TO KILL ME FOR ANY INCONSISTENCIES: Please be nice. Point out my faults and I'll correct them. It has been a very long time since I was last a fan of Star Trek: Enterprice (I was 4), and though I am trying to remain consistent, in some aspects I'm going to call on the power of Alternate Timelines (Jedi Buttercup- I think I mentioned in my response on the whole 'Generations' thing.) **

**8cough8 Kirk's death 8cough8 **

**In this I feel the need to defend myself. It was told to me by Jedi Buttercup that Kirk died helping Captain Picard. It fits Kirk indubitably, to go down in a blaze of glory. However, since I plan to stick to my Alternative Time-Line and there was no mention of any body's deaths I'm going to stick with it. Please try to understand. **

**I am not a Trekkie, but I am a long-lived fan.**

**I dedicate this to my friend Fogdragon23 who is a Trekkie and to all of my other friends and to Trekkie's everywhere.**

**I do not own Star Trek.**

**I do not own Amazing Grace.**

**Now to rewatch Star Trek. I may become a Trekkie yet.**

**Stay safe**

**Stay healthy**

**Live Long and Prosper,**

**Starr Bryte**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx **

There had been only a few points in his life where he had felt so desperately alone. His childhood, certainly, he could acknowledge that he had been alone; the half-breed child of the Ambassador. But that had changed when he had joined Starfleet and, most inevitably, Starship Enterprise. There were missions gone wrong, maroonings; both accidental and not. That one horrible time he had been so sick

from radiation poisoning that he had actually died. The one moment that he had cast all Logic aside to protect those he cared for. No other moment had been more horrible. The worst of all agonies, not just the agony of every breath of every heartbeat. But watching as his crew watched. As Kirk watched. Jim. He told the emotional idiot to stay away. He hadn't wanted to see the pain in his eyes as something so possessively cherished wasted away in front of him. It had taken McCoy, Scotty and... he couldn't really remember... Chekov?... to hold the grieving Admiral... Yes... He had been Admiral then...

But, in the end, there was no one else he would rather have had beside him, despite the pane of glass that had kept them apart.

"_Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound_

_That saved a wretch like me_

_I once was lost, but now I'm found_

_Was blind, but now I see..."_

Kirk, the first person he acknowledged in the morning.

Kirk, the last person he bid good-night.

His voice, his eyes, his mind, his emotions. The way he smiled. The way he sat. The way he spoke.

Everything.

Obsession? Possession? Friendship?

...Love?

No. Something far more understandable that any concept, any emotion he had ever felt.

Kirk's existence was everything.

"_I live because you exist, always remember that, Spock..."_

"Then... I exist because you live...Jim..."

Logic. Simple as that.

Kirk hated that word.

"_Screw your logic, Screw your reasoning! Sometimes you just have to do the unexpected and let the chips fall where they may! Screw everything else!"_

"Is that an order... Sir?"

He never could help himself.

"_...Smarmy bastard..."_

There had been few times when he had ever felt this cold.

Logic. He was on an ice moon. It was cold. Freezing in fact.

"_Follow your heart..."_

"I did, Mother... As far as I dared go and beyond..."

This wasn't just the cold of the body, but the cold of the heart.

Guilt was a bitter taste on his tongue and despair of sour bile.

"...My fault... All my fault... I'm sorry... I tried..."

"_Apologies such as that will never be enough... I want you to suffer Vulcan!"_

And suffer he did.

"_...I will never be ashamed that you tried and failed, my son... I will only be ashamed that you failed to try..."_

"... Mother..."

No matter that the woman had died years before, time catching up to her short human span of years. It had been peaceful, her frail hand held in his, the sky cloudless and so blue it hurt. He had seen the smile on her lips as she breathed her last.

But this was different.

There was no peace, no happy acceptance, no knowledge that son and people were as safe and happy as they could be, well liked and well loved by people they loved in return.

This was violence and despair and agony and a life cut off far, far too soon.

He felt the most sorrow for his younger self, if his younger self did in fact still live.

He wasn't afraid. Not for himself.

In the end there was no one left for him to fear for.

"_Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear_

_And Grace, my fears relieved_

_How precious did my Grace appear_

_The hour I first believed..."_

It was the wail of bagpipes he missed the most when Scotty died, the last and most long-lived of all of his comrades, except for Kirk, ever stubborn and determined to remain by his side.

But in the end even the admirable, indomitable Admiral James Tiberius Kirk could not escape death's clutches and his dearest friend had been torn from his grasp. Not in any blaze of glory as he would have wished, but in a Starfleet hospice. Frustration had been an understatement regarding Kirk's feelings on the matter, but in the end there had been no other way.

Secretly, Spock was relieved. Kirk had served as long as he was able, but his body could no longer sustain the stress.

"_Dammit, Spock, I should be out there! I hate this feeling, like I'm being stifled."_

"I know, Jim..."

"_I never wanted it to end like this. I wanted... I wanted to die in battle. Defending what was right and good in the universe. I wanted to go down in a blaze of glory."_

"I know, Jim... Who knows? In some other Reality you do. In some other Reality you were there when they needed you. In some other Reality you did what needed to be done."

"_But what about THIS Reality, Spock? What about MY end? Not some other me's end, but mine? Here? Now?"_

"In this Reality, I would consider you lucky... At least this way you can say good-bye..."

"_I hate good-byes..."_

"I know..."

"_S'cold, Spock..."_

At least, in that final moment, he was able to hold his friend in his arms as he died, feeling every gasping breath, every faltering heartbeat. Jim would've done no less for him.

"_...Are you crying Spock...? Don't... It's... not so bad...I'm just... So very... Very... Tired..."_

"Then... Logically... You should sleep..."

"_There you go with your be damned Logic again... You know where... where..."_

"Where I can shove that Logic..?"

"_Yeah... But not right now..." _

"Is that an order...My Captain?"

"_Yeah... And Spock..?"_

"Yes, Jim?"

"_You've been...and always will be... My dearest friend..."_

"That will never change, my friend..."

"_Live long, Spock... And... Prosper..."_

Kirk had ever been the only one to truly see Spock weep.

"_I am always in full control of my emotions..."_

"_Yeah... In a pig's eye..."_

He had nothing to live for now. In a time not his own, in a place that could easily kill him in his old age, watching everything precious sucked away, all alone. It would have been so easy to simply lay down and die. Vows to old comrades and loved ones be damned if he would watch anymore with such horrible knowledge and live.

In fact he almost gave in and did just that when he heard the growling and the snarling and the crackling and the snapping and a familiar voice, so painful and precious, yelling.

It was not emotion that drove him to fight back, to defend that person from death.

It was Logic. Kirk would have done no less for those in need.

But he was not as young as he used to be and it was cold and rations did nothing for him but reinstate how hungry he was.

"...Hey... Are you okay..? Thanks by the way."

And he looked up into a pair of eyes he would know anywhere, into a face he would know anywhere, young though it was, younger even than when they first met. A young captain and an ambassador's son forced to work towards a common goal despite all of their differences.

"...How did you find me...?"

"H-huh? I don't know you.. Who are you?"

Logic. Simple and brutal and nothing but the truth.

"I am and forever will be your dearest friend..."

"What?!"

"I am Spock..."

"You can't be Spock... Spock hates me!"

It wasn't surprising with the sudden changes in Time-Line. But still to hear such vehemence from that mouth and voice most cherished pained him. Almost. But then again he- his other self- had just marooned his once and future captain on an icy world with nothing but the barest necessities to his death.

It felt good to mind-meld with him (again?). Right in a way. Wrong in others. This was not HIS Kirk. This angry, brash, hurt young mind that wanted so badly to prove itself, yet was never given the chance. A mother who could not praise him. A father who only lived long enough to name him. No one who would believe.

He believed. And others would too if they were but given the chance.

And it was with that knowledge that he knew what he had to do.

It was a pleasant, bittersweet shock to see Scotty again. But it was not HIS Scotty. But that smile. That accent. The drawling brogue. The cursing complaints. The way he put his feet on the consul.

He couldn't help but ask.

"Do you play bagpipes, Mr. Scott?"

Scotty blinked at him before asking, his burr thickening with confusion.

"An' wha' in th' name o' heavn' possessed y't'ask a question like THAT?!"

A raised eyebrow and a graceful shrug. Scotty shook his head and turned back to his work with a muttered,

"Crazy ol' bat..."

But to hear the droning strains of Scotland the Brave in the icy dawn the day they left made his heart ache bittersweet.

In the end Scotty was and always would be Scotty.

"So y'like the pipes do y'?"

"Yes. Very much so Mr. Scott..."

"_Through many dangers, toils and snares_

_I have already come_

_It was Grace that brought me safe, thus far_

_And Grace that will lead me home..."_

They were there. All of them.

Chekov's accent musical and thick and humorous, with W's instead of V's and again he had to ask himself why someone with such lilting enunciation was Communications Officer.

Sulu, quiet and quick, although the sword was a pleasant surprise.

Uhura, giving his younger self appreciative glances and his younger self answering in a way most unprofessional that did nothing but confuse him.

McCoy, still negative and surreptitiously drinking with his tiny silver flask and stabbing people in the neck, or at least Kirk in the neck, much to the young captain's irritation.

Some things never change...

"_You never hold still long enough for me to do a proper examination, how am I supposed to help you?"_

"_Why don't you try just asking for once!"_

"_Crazy bastard!"_

"_Sadistic doctor..."_

"Sir, if I may, Medical Officer McCoy is just being-"

"_Spock, if you say the word 'Logical!' I swear I'll-"_

"_You said it, not me, Sir... I was going to say 'Cautious'. You never know what could be out there and he's just trying to look after your health since you so often do not..."_

It took an observant person to realize that Captain James T. Kirk had a horribly endearing habit of pouting when he didn't get his way. A trait that, regretfully, his younger self did not share.

He knew his younger self was emotionally unstable, but just by how much shocked him.

So many negative emotions. Such strength of will that it almost stagnated his personality. Was he ever this bad in his youth?

Perhaps it was a good thing Kirk was a renown bar brawler then to stand up to such anger.

Now if only he could become more quickly immune to the Vulcan Nerve Pinch...

It wasn't a difficult decision then, to meet with his younger self. Time had already been changed and the young Vulcan already suspected. So much the better to warn him away from certain incidences that would do more harm than good in the long run.

"Advice? Wouldn't that change the Timeline even more?"

"What was and what is has already been broken. I am just using Logic to steer you away from occasions that would do more harm than good in the long run..."

For example, former Starship Captain Christopher Pike. The medical officers had been warned. Hopefully the degradation of the Captain's health would cease, though he would never again regain the use of his legs.

It was so strange to look into those earnest young eyes and see himself in them. All that he was, all that he is, all that he would and could become.

"Give in, Spock... In the end it comes down to two choices... You must either bend or you must break... And you will break, Spock... Both of you... You won't be able to help it. You won't be able to stop it... So just give in..."

"_Just give in Spock..."_

"Sir?"

"_You're hurting, anyone can see it... When you really need to, don't hesitate to give in... You'll just end up hurting yourself and everyone around you if you don't..."_

"Take care of him Spock... In the end you'll realize just how much he'll need to rely on your strength... And you on his."

A slow, familiar, wry smile.

"I think I'm already beginning to realize that..."

It was only when his younger self had turned to leave when a thought struck him and he reached out to grab his sleeve with almost desperate intensity.

"Tribbles..." He blurted.

"What...?"

He couldn't agree more. Why Tribbles when so many other things had caused him so much grief? Maybe it was, because of all of his experiences in life, the Tribble incident had been one of the more annoying misadventures and the cause of many migraines.

"Beware of Tribbles... You won't believe the amount of trouble they cause..."

He was about to give the same advice to the young Captain himself and was shocked speechless when Kirk pulled him into a tight embrace.

"Thanks for everything, old man... I think I can handle it from here..."

Those familiar arms held the hug until he answered back, hands shaking as the hold tightened.

"You really miss him don't you..?"

"He was... My everything... On that mission... I was quite prepared to meet him in the afterlife...But-"

"Hey... I may not know Spock very well, but we are beginning to get to know each other a little better. Give us some credit." He pulled away and put a hand on his shoulder, staring him straight in the eye. It was the same firm, serious gaze mismatched by that cheeky devil-may-care smile.

"I was and always will be your friend. I don't think that could ever change even if I tried..."

"Well, I should hope not... After all, if you are anything like yourself you will need someone with any Logic and emotional control nearby to keep you in line."

"Hey!"

"Take care of them, Jim... And take care of yourself..."

"You too, old friend... Y'know... Ummm... Call me... Whenever..."

It was rare that the unruffable James T. Kirk was rendered blushing and speechless. He felt vaguely honored.

"I will... Live Long and Prosper, Jim..."

There was much to do. The Vulcans needed a new home. Interspacial politics and policies needed to be reshuffled. Romulans needed to be reassessed and badgered. Scientists needed to be put on watch. Life went on as usual.

Or as usual as it ever got when one was acquainted with the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

And the Enterprise, fixed and shined and looking like new, flew off into the galaxy where no man has gone before...

Maybe he should have warned them about that one world of Amazon women...

Oh well...

They would learn...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx6 MONTHS LATERxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"SPOCK!!!"

"Greetings Captain, It's good to hear from you again..."

"Save it Spock! Your junior version is driving me up the wall! Logic this! Logic that! Emotional control my ass!"

"Well, Jim... If you want my honest opinion... I say you should tell him where his Logic can be shoved... It always worked for you before..."

"....I'm almost afraid to ask..."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx2 YEARSxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

First Officer Spock winced and blinked up into a pair of familiar eyes. It took him a moment to realize that he was not looking up at his father, who was on the opposite side of the Universe at the moment, but himself.

"I warned you Spock..."

He bit back a groan and closed his eyes again.

"No what have we learned from this experience?"

"...Don't feed the Tribbles..."

"Good."

He was never going to live this down. He just knew it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx5 YEARSxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was eerie watching them. The way they stood. So frustratingly close together, yet not touching. The way they looked at each other, a language of expression only understood by the two of them. The way they watched each other when they thought no one was looking.

The emotions that only seemed to be drawn out by Kirk.

The protective yet teasing attitude that only seemed to be brought on by Spock.

It hurt to see them together. To remember the way it used to be. But it was a good pain. Sometimes he stayed on board the Enterprise just to watch them. But it only lasted until he could no longer stand it and then he left.

His younger self needed someone to talk to about emotions and logic and the need to find a balance between the two. Kirk needed to rant about emotionally constipated annoyingly correct First Officers.

He would listen and say nothing. He realized that they didn't want advice, not really, just someone to talk at that they didn't encounter 24/7. Everything else they figured out on their own, out loud during violent games of chess. It smoothed out a lot of misunderstandings before the fights and lashing out ever happened.

Even though it had made his relationship stronger through tests of fire and betrayal; this trust was built a lot faster and made ever stronger because Spock was learning how to speak with his heart and Kirk was learning that sometimes it was better to look before leaping and to clarify before jumping to conclusions.

Every time he closed his eyes he would see the way it used to be.

Every day the pain got a little harder to bear.

Stars, he was so lonely. It was true. You never really cherish or know what you have until it's gone.

But he could wait. He was patient.

Live long and prosper.

His time would come.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx8 YEARSxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"...They say he died in his sleep... He looked so peaceful... There was a smile on his face..."

"...He had lived a long, full life... It was his time..."

"He was holding a picture... They buried it with him... They... Thought it was my father...I didn't say otherwise..."

"Logical... Our other selves were close... I never knew Mr. Scott could play bagpipes..."

"I did... He said he always like the sound... It... Stirred something in him to hear them..."

"An emotional response to a musical instrument? Fascinating..."

They had buried him on Earth, his Mother's land, next to her grave. The entirety of the Enterprise, as well as the remaining Vulcans had shown up to the memorial service. His father had not, confused and pained at the loss of both wife and son who was not his son. He didn't know what to feel. It was almost like a piece of himself was missing. A personality that had always been with him but was now suddenly gone. He glanced at Kirk out of the corner of his eye. The Captain was trying not to cry, but the tears were escaping slowly. But that could be blamed on the weather. It wasn't really raining, small smatterings of precipitation and a cool breeze. It made the grass the sort of eye-smarting shade of green that he had come to associate with Earth. He reached out to touch the marker.

"Beloved Son, Cherished Comrade, Precious Friend. Long Lived and Prosperous You Kept Your Promise. Rest In Peace. Ambassador Spock."

A sudden breeze made Kirk shiver and Spock didn't hesitate to put an arm around his shoulders.

"We should go inside. Medical Officer McCoy would be very displeased if you allowed yourself to become ill..."

"Bones can sit and spin, I'll be fine."

Spock leaned his forehead against Kirk's temple.

"Then I would be very displeased if you allowed yourself to become ill... What would he say if I didn't take proper care of my Captain?"

"Is this more of your logic?"

"No. This is my emotional attachment to a dear friend. And a promise I made to myself."

A choked sort of laugh. Kirk would be fine, in time.

"Wouldn't want you to break a promise now would we?" He pulled away and Spock followed a half-pace behind. Kirk slowed deliberately until they were walking side-by-side.

When his hand accidentally brushed against Kirk's he said nothing.

By the time they reached the service hall they were hand-in-hand, fingers entwined comfortably and swaying slightly between them as they walked.

"_Since my usual farewell would be self-serving in this regard I will say this... Good luck, Spock..."_

"I was, am and always will be, your very dearest friend."

Logic was funny like that.


End file.
